A Review on Disorder-Driven Metal-Insulator Transition in Crystalline Vacancy-Rich GeSbTe Phase-Change Materials

Reversible Amorphous-Crystalline Phase Transformation in an Ultrathin van der Waals FeTe System

Searching for new phase-change materials for memory and neuromorphic device applications and further understanding the phase transformation mechanism are attracting wide attention. Phase transformation from the amorphous phase to the crystal phase has been unraveled in iron telluride (FeTe) bulk film deposited by pulsed laser deposition, recently. However, the van der Waals-layered feature of FeTe in the crystal form was not noted, which will benefit the scaling of the memory devices and shine light on phase-change heterostructures or interfacial phase-change materials. Moreover, the demonstration of advanced memory or neuromorphic device applications is lacking. Here, we investigate the phase transformation of FeTe starting from mechanically exfoliated van der Waals layers from a bulk single crystal. Surficial amorphization is revealed at the surface layers of FeTe flakes after exfoliation under ambient conditions, which could be transformed back to the crystalline phase with laser irradiation or heating. The conductance drop of the flake devices near 400 K verifies the phase transformation electrically. Memristor behavior of the amorphous surface in FeTe has been further demonstrated, proving the reversibility of the phase transformation and shining light on the possible applications of neuromorphic devices.

Metavalent Bonding in Layered Phase-Change Memory Materials

Metavalent bonding (MVB) is characterized by the competition between electron delocalization as in metallic bonding and electron localization as in covalent or ionic bonding, serving as an essential ingredient in phase-change materials for advanced memory applications. The crystalline phase-change materials exhibits MVB, which stems from the highly aligned p orbitals and results in large dielectric constants. Breaking the alignment of these chemical bonds leads to a drastic reduction in dielectric constants. In this work, it is clarified how MVB develops across the so-called van der Waals-like gaps in layered Sb₂ Te₃ and Ge-Sb-Te alloys, where coupling of p orbitals is significantly reduced. A type of extended defect involving such gaps in thin films of trigonal Sb₂ Te₃ is identified by atomic imaging experiments and ab initio simulations. It is shown that this defect has an impact on the structural and optical properties, which is consistent with the presence of non-negligible electron sharing in the gaps. Furthermore, the degree of MVB across the gaps is tailored by applying uniaxial strain, which results in a large variation of dielectric function and reflectivity in the trigonal phase. At last, design strategies are provided for applications utilizing the trigonal phase.

Oscillatory Order-Disorder Transition during Layer-by-Layer Growth of Indium Selenide

It is important to understand the polymorph transition and crystal-amorphous phase transition in In₂Se₃ to tap the potential of this material for resistive memory storage. By monitoring layer-by-layer growth of β-In₂Se₃ during molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), we are able to identify a cyclical order-disorder transition characterized by a periodic alternation between a glassy-like metastable subunit cell film consisting of n < 5 sublayers (nth layers = the number of subunit cell layers), and a highly crystalline β-In₂Se₃ at n = 5 layers. The glassy phase shows an odd-even alternation between the indium-cluster layer (n = 1, 3) and an In-Se solid solution (n = 2, 4), which suggests the ability of In and Se atoms to diffuse, aggregate, and intermix. These dynamic natures of In and Se atoms contribute to a defect-driven memory resistive behavior in current-voltage sweeps that is different from the ferroelectric switching of α-In₂Se₃.

The Relationship between Electron Transport and Microstructure in Ge2Sb2Te5 Alloy

Phase-change random-access memory (PCRAM) holds great promise for next-generation information storage applications. As a mature phase change material, Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ alloy (GST) relies on the distinct electrical properties of different states to achieve information storage, but there are relatively few studies on the relationship between electron transport and microstructure. In this work, we found that the first resistance dropping in GST film is related to the increase of carrier concentration, in which the atomic bonding environment changes substantially during the crystallization process. The second resistance dropping is related to the increase of carrier mobility. Besides, during the cubic to the hexagonal phase transition, the nanograins grow significantly from ~50 nm to ~300 nm, which reduces the carrier scattering effect. Our study lays the foundation for precisely controlling the storage states of GST-based PCRAM devices.

Reflective Terahertz Metasurfaces Based on Non-Volatile Phase Change Material for Switchable Manipulation

Recently, metasurfaces have been investigated and exploited for various applications in the THz regime, including modulators and detectors. However, the responsive properties of the metasurface in THz stay fixed once the fabrication process is complete. This limitation can be modified when integrating the phase change material (PCM), whose states are switchable between crystalline and amorphous, into the metasurface structure. This characteristic of the PCM is appealing in achieving dynamic and customizable functionality. In this work, the reflective metasurface structure is designed as a hexagonal unit deposited on a polyimide substrate. The non-volatile PCM chosen for the numerical study is germanium antimony tellurium (GST). Our proposed phase change metasurface provides two resonant frequencies located at 1.72 and 2.70 THz, respectively; one of them shows a high contrast of reflectivity at almost 80%. The effects of geometrical parameters, incident angles, and polarization modes on the properties of the proposed structure are explored. Finally, the performances of the structure are evaluated in terms of the insertion loss and extinction ratio.

Stimuli-Responsive Memristive Materials for Artificial Synapses and Neuromorphic Computing

Neuromorphic computing holds promise for building next-generation intelligent systems in a more energy-efficient way than the conventional von Neumann computing architecture. Memristive hardware, which mimics biological neurons and synapses, offers high-speed operation and low power consumption, enabling energy- and area-efficient, brain-inspired computing. Here, recent advances in memristive materials and strategies that emulate synaptic functions for neuromorphic computing are highlighted. The working principles and characteristics of biological neurons and synapses, which can be mimicked by memristive devices, are presented. Besides device structures and operation with different external stimuli such as electric, magnetic, and optical fields, how memristive materials with a rich variety of underlying physical mechanisms can allow fast, reliable, and low-power neuromorphic applications is also discussed. Finally, device requirements are examined and a perspective on challenges in developing memristive materials for device engineering and computing science is given.

Topologically Nontrivial Phase-Change Compound GeSb2Te4

Chalcogenide phase-change materials show strikingly contrasting optical and electrical properties, which has led to their extensive implementation in various memory devices. By performing spin-, time-, and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy combined with the first-principles calculation, we report the experimental results that the crystalline phase of GeSb₂Te₄ is topologically nontrivial in the vicinity of the Dirac semimetal phase. The resulting linearly dispersive bulk Dirac-like bands that cross the Fermi level and are thus responsible for conductivity in the stable crystalline phase of GeSb₂Te₄ can be viewed as a 3D analogue of graphene. Our finding provides us with the possibility of realizing inertia-free Dirac currents in phase-change materials.

Phase change thin films for non-volatile memory applications

The rapid development of Internet of Things devices requires real time processing of a huge amount of digital data, creating a new demand for computing technology. Phase change memory technology based on chalcogenide phase change materials meets many requirements of the emerging memory applications since it is fast, scalable and non-volatile. In addition, phase change memory offers multilevel data storage and can be applied both in neuro-inspired and all-photonic in-memory computing. Furthermore, phase change alloys represent an outstanding class of functional materials having a tremendous variety of industrially relevant characteristics and exceptional material properties. Many efforts have been devoted to understanding these properties with the particular aim to design universal memory. This paper reviews materials science aspects of chalcogenide-based phase change thin films relevant for non-volatile memory applications. Particular emphasis is put on local structure, control of disorder and its impact on material properties, order-disorder transitions and interfacial transformations.

Ge-Sb-Te Chalcogenide Thin Films Deposited by Nanosecond, Picosecond, and Femtosecond Laser Ablation

Ge-Sb-Te thin films were obtained by ns-, ps-, and fs-pulsed laser deposition (PLD) in various experimental conditions. The thickness of the samples was influenced by the Nd-YAG laser wavelength, fluence, target-to-substrate distance, and deposition time. The topography and chemical analysis results showed that the films deposited by ns-PLD revealed droplets on the surface together with a decreased Te concentration and Sb over-stoichiometry. Thin films with improved surface roughness and chemical compositions close to nominal values were deposited by ps- and fs-PLD. The X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy results showed that the samples obtained with ns pulses were partially crystallized while the lower fluences used in ps- and fs-PLD led to amorphous depositions. The optical parameters of the ns-PLD samples were correlated to their structural properties.

Observation of carrier localization in cubic crystalline Ge2Sb2Te5 by field effect measurement

The tunable disorder of vacancies upon annealing is an important character of crystalline phase-change material Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST). A variety of resistance states caused by different degrees of disorder can lead to the development of multilevel memory devices, which could bring a revolution to the memory industry by significantly increasing the storage density and inspiring the neuromorphic computing. This work focuses on the study of disorder-induced carrier localization which could result in multiple resistance levels of crystalline GST. To analyze the effect of carrier localization on multiple resistant levels, the intrinsic field effect (the change in surface conductance with an applied transverse electric field) of crystalline GST was measured, in which GST films were annealed at different temperatures. The field effect measurement is an important complement to conventional transport measurement techniques. The field effect mobility was acquired and showed temperature activation, a hallmark of carrier localization. Based on the relationship between field effect mobility and annealing temperature, we demonstrate that the annealing shifts the mobility edge towards the valence-band edge, delocalizing more carriers. The insight of carrier transport in multilevel crystalline states is of fundamental relevance for the development of multilevel phase change data storage.

Impact of disorder on optical reflectivity contrast of epitaxial Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films

Classification of the optical reflectivity contrasts of single-phase, epitaxial Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ thin films with respect to the vacancy arrangements.